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"I speak freely," said Boriskoff with unaffected candor, "for to do that I have come here. And first I must set your memory right in a matter that concerns us both. You did not leave Poland to serve your country; you left it to betray us. Spare your words, for the story has been told many times in Warsaw and in London.
"It is a thing which we do not want to have talked about in the hotel," the young man hesitated. "I assure you I won't talk to any one. I don't know any one to talk to." "It is very distressing, but the Princess Boriskoff died about four o'clock this morning, of heart failure." "Oh!" ... I could not get out another word. "These things are not liked in hotels, even when not contagious."
Alban stared at the picture open-mouthed and so lost in amazement that all other interests of his visit were instantly lost to his memory. A hard dogmatic common-sense could make little of a coincidence so amazing. If he had wished to think that the unknown resembled little Lois Boriskoff if he had wished so much last night, the portrait, seen in this dim light, flattered his desire amazingly.
For in a measure he felt that his very chivalry had been faithless to one who had loved him well and in the degradation of that violent scene he recalled the spirit of the melancholy years, the atmosphere of the mean streets, and the figure of little Lois Boriskoff asking both his pity and his love.
These people would deliver a letter if you locked yourself up in an iron safe. They will communicate with you in the morning and we must make up our minds what to do. That is why I want advice." "If you take mine," said Alban quietly, "you will permit me to see her at once. I am the last person in all Warsaw whom Lois Boriskoff will desire to injure."
She will choose another husband that is my wish and she will obey it." "You are doing me a great injustice, Paul Boriskoff. I do not love Anna perhaps for a moment I thought that I did, but I know now that I was deceiving myself. She is not one who is worthy of being loved. I believed her very different when first I went to Hampstead." "Tell me no such thing.
No cloud stood upon the horizon of his self-esteem nor did shadows darken his glowing hopes. He had promised Richard Gessner to arrest the girl Lois Boriskoff, and arrested she would be before twelve o'clock to-morrow.
And to this the wild Asiatics and the sad-faced Poles listened alike with rare murmurs and odd contortions of limbs and body. Let Paul Boriskoff of Minsk be the orator and they knew that the red flag would fly. But never before has Boriskoff been seen in tears and the spectacle enchained their attention as no mere rhetoric could have done.
Little Lois Boriskoff, he thought, must know more of human nature than any woman in those assemblies where, as the half-penny papers told him, cards and horses and motor-cars were the subjects chiefly talked about. It delighted him to imagine the abduction of one of these society beauties and her forcible detention for a month in Thrawl Street.
I came here to-night to see if I could help you both. You know, Paul Boriskoff, how much I wish to do so. While I have money, it is yours also. Have not Lois and I always been as your children? You cannot forbid me to act as a son should, just because I have come into my inheritance. Let me find you a better home and take you away from this dismal place.
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